


Facets

by Branithar



Category: As It Is (Band)
Genre: Found Family, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, More tags to be added, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:53:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23698813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Branithar/pseuds/Branithar
Summary: While studying at MIT, Tom Atkins bumps into Patty Walters, a guy his age who somehow looks exactly like him.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

Tom fidgeted nervously with his pint of water. He’d snuck into plenty of clubs to spite his parents before, even back in high school, but gay bars were a new low. They’d beat him within an inch of his life if they had any idea, but knowing how mad it would make them just made it all the more satisfying for him. They couldn’t do anything from across the country anyway, so really it was their fault for not letting him study at a local college like he’d wanted. 

Some local band was playing tonight, the woman at the mic screaming out a sob story she probably made up while listening to My Chemical Romance at a cemetery one night. It wasn’t what Tom normally listened to, but his mother would hate it, so for tonight he guessed it was the best music in the world. 

After finishing his water, Tom decided he didn’t want to bother the bartender for another, so he moved into the crowd and pretended to dance, or jump, or whatever the fuck everyone else was doing. To his surprise, he found that he was starting to enjoy himself after a few songs, enough that he wanted to push his parents’ imaginary rage even further. 

Some emo guy with black lipstick, eyeliner and hair had smiled at him when he joined the crowd and slowly danced closer, biting his lip when Tom started to look at him too. Why not? Nobody here knew him, they weren’t going to tell on him. A new song began and he let himself get closer until they were undoubtedly dancing _together,_ the guy definitely being more than a little suggestive about it. 

Although it was dark enough that Tom could pretend this stranger was a woman, the lingering thought that his dad would fucking kill him made for an interesting thrill. He leaned in, the guy smiling and doing the same until their lips met. 

_Fuck it._

Tom grabbed at the guy and kissed him harder, letting it get messy until the band’s set ended and he found himself being pulled towards the bathroom, starting to consider how far he was _actually_ willing to go with this. 

He didn’t get to find out, though. Once they were under the bright fluorescent lights of the disgusting club bathroom, the guy turned back to him, his grin dropping so fast it was almost funny.

He stared at Tom in shock. “Oh my god.”

Tom glanced at himself in the mirror, suddenly a little self conscious but unable to see anything immediately alarming aside from the incriminating smear of black around his lips. “What?”

The guy’s face twisted a little. “Are we related?”

“ _What?_ ” 

“We look…way too similar,” he said, “I hate to be insensitive but…you’re not adopted, are you?”

What the fuck. “We don’t look anything like each other,” Tom argued, ignoring the other thing. 

The guy pulled out his phone. “I dye my hair, hold on.” He scrolled for an awkwardly quiet moment, then held the screen up for Tom to see.

Tom’s stomach dropped. For a moment he thought the selfie was of _him_ , but he knew that he’d never dressed like that before. He wasn’t _gay._

“Are you adopted?” he repeated. 

Tom looked at his shoes. “Yeah,” he admitted, “You?”

The guy nodded. 

Shit. 

“That doesn’t mean we’re…related,” Tom reasoned, suddenly realising he’d figured out how far he _wasn’t_ willing to go to enrage his parents, “Plenty of unrelated people look the same.” 

“We could be, though,” the guy said with a weird frown, “How old are you?” 

“Nineteen.” Tom didn’t like the face the guy made at that. 

“My birthday’s on the twenty ninth of September,” he said softly.

Tom looked at the mirror. This was _not_ how he’d imagined meeting his secret twin that nobody had ever told him even existed.


	2. Chapter 2

The moment he got home, Patty texted Mom, his stomach in knots. 

**Do I have a twin?**

His parents had always been transparent with him. He couldn’t remember ever not knowing he and his sister were adopted and his parents had _never_ made him feel less loved for it. Would they keep something like this from him? A few hours ago he would have said no way, no _fucking_ way, but the evidence that Tom could be his brother was too overwhelming to ignore. 

It was late, Mom and Dad would be asleep by now, but Patty couldn’t help his pacing. How could he go through his whole childhood not knowing he had a brother?

“You alright, mate?” 

Patty jumped at Ali’s groggy voice. “Sorry, did I wake you up?” 

Ali waved him off. “Did something happen?” 

“I think I have a twin.” 

Ali paused, then gave him a confused look. 

Patty sat on a stool, fidgeting with a piece of paper someone had left on the counter. “I met this guy at Hop’s. Tom Atkins. He looks exactly like me and we have the same birthday. And he’s adopted.” 

Looking more awake, Ali sat with him. “Your parents never mentioned him?”

“No. I don’t-” Patty sighed. “They would tell me if they knew I had a brother. I think. I texted Mom, but she’s probably asleep.” 

Ali nodded. “When you say he looks like you…”

“I thought I was looking in a mirror,” Patty told him, “He’s blond, like I was before I started dyeing.” 

“He’s trans too?”

“I didn’t ask, but…” Patty shrugged. “He probably is, right?”

Ali took one of Patty’s hands in sympathy. “So what now?” 

“I wish I knew.” 

“Did you get his number?”

“Yeah. He has mine, too.” Possibly a mistake if there was a _reason_ his parents never told him about Tom. Maybe he was a psychopath or something. 

As if on cue, Patty’s phone vibrated. Tom had texted him. 

“He wants to know if I was from an orphanage,” Patty told Ali, texting Tom the name of his orphanage. Hopefully not a stupid decision, even if Tom _was_ a stalker or something. 

Tom didn’t text back and Patty wondered if he was from Saint Philomena’s too. 

“No use stressing over it tonight,” Ali said, “You’ll feel better with some sleep.”

“Yeah,” Patty surrendered. If he _could_ use some sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Tom wondered if Patty was having as much trouble sleeping as he was when his reply came almost immediately. He glanced at the text, not recognising the name of Patty’s old orphanage. Some searching online told him that it was a local place that had been shut down by a lack of funding years ago. He couldn’t find any hackable records, so he went back to his own orphanage. 

He’d wondered about his biological parents countless times. He used to fantasise about them coming to his adoptive parents’ house and explaining that there had been a terrible mistake and they wanted their son back. Searching Wings of Refuge’s records to figure out who they were had been his primary motivation for teaching himself to hack. Funnily enough, Tom’s interest in computer sciences was one of the few things his dad approved of. He’d said that it would give him an edge when he took over the family business one day. 

Tom had put the idea of real parents out of his mind long ago, but now his interest in them was back. It was weird to admit, but Patty _had_ to be his brother. Why had they ended up in different orphanages? At other ends of the country, no less.

Frustratingly, Tom’s search turned up nothing. He’d hoped that years of practice would help this time, but it seemed like there was _nothing_ about his past on record. It was as if one moment he didn’t exist and the next there were pages of information about various medications they’d had him on and shit like that, like he just sprang into being, issues programmed in from the start. 

Out of curiosity, he looked up another child and immediately found records describing her parents’ drug addictions and imprisonments. He shoved at the table in frustration. There could _never_ be any fucking answers, could there?

Eventually noticing the light coming in through his window, Tom sighed. He was gonna feel like shit today.


	4. Chapter 4

Just like Ali said, everything felt a little more normal in the morning. Patty already had a sister, how weird could a long-lost brother actually be? He wondered how much they had in common aside from their looks and apparent taste in guys at dimly lit clubs. 

As Patty heated up some leftover stir fry in the microwave, his phone started buzzing and he looked at it. A call from Mom. 

Apprehensive, Patty answered. “Hey Mom.”

“Hi sweetie!” she greeted cheerily, and Patty couldn’t help but smile, “How are you?”

“Great. Did you see my text?”

“Yeah, that’s why I called,” she said, “I’m a little confused, though. What made you ask if you have a twin?”

“I met someone last night. Tom Atkins? He…he looks exactly like me and we have the same birthday.”

Mom was silent for a moment. “We were never told anything about a twin. We would’ve adopted him too if we’d known.”

Patty breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks. I was just checking.”

“Oh, sweetie, we wouldn’t keep something like that from you,” Mom assured, “How about Dad and I call Saint Philomena’s and ask. What was his name again?”

“Tom Atkins. Thanks, Mom.”

“Any time, sweetie. Are you still coming over for Sunday dinner next week?”

“Yep!”

“We’ll see what we can find out and tell you about it then, okay? It doesn’t seem right that they’d separate twins and not tell anyone.”

“Yeah, sounds great. Love you.”

“Love you too! Bye!”

“Bye.”

Thank god. Patty’s whole worldview was slowly coming back together. Who knew, maybe he and Tom somehow weren’t actually related at all. It could all just be a bunch of really weird coincidences. 

Patty checked his phone. He had to pick up new meds and get to work, but he hoped that he’d have time to hang out with Tom over the week. They had a lot of catching up to do.


End file.
